Websites usually run through year-end lists of their most read stories, and we’re doing that here and there. But today, each of your Above the Law editors wanted to share their favorite stories they wrote this year, traffic be damned.
For me, 2018 was filled with stories about clown lawyer Michael Cohen, and Brett Kavanaugh’s multiple moral failings.
But my favorite story was, oddly, when I took the time to respond to all the readers who send me hate mail. Understand, I get a lot of hate mail generally, but 2018 was kind of a banner year for assholes popping up in my inbox. It would be exhausting to even notice all of it, much less respond to it. After one story in particular drove white people crazy, I did a full hate mail dump.
The concept of being able to proudly say what you really think is foreign to him, because what he probably “really thinks” is so disgusting that he can’t get away with saying it anywhere other than his own alt-right enclave. It’s why these people think “political correctness” is such a scourge. Because when these people crawl out from under their rocks, decent people are horrified. And these guys mistake that horror for hyper-sensitivity.
It was actually really satisfying. I think once a year I will indulge the racist people who email me… and respond.
Staci Zaretsky handles most of our bar exams posts, and she does the salary and bonus scorecards that serve the commendable purpose of holding firms’ feet to the fire. This year, she also did some great postings about Lawyer Moms and their organizing to protest the administration’s child separation policy.
But her top choice was exposing how firms were forcing summer associates into mandatory arbitration agreements, thus subtly silencing their sexual harassment claims.
Thanks to social media, no employees at Munger Tolles — from summers to staffers to associates to partners — will be forced to arbitrate sexual harassment claims. But what about those at the firm who previously signed agreements like this? Time may be up, but those who did will still be bound to the firm’s ways of the past.
How many other Biglaw firms are forcing law students to sign agreements like this, sending disputes into private tribunals beyond the prying eyes of the media or courts?
That story about summers indirectly led to prospective full-time associates from top law schools to take a stand against these agreements.
I thought Joe Patrice would go with his reporting on the spat between John Quinn and Faith Gay, and my favorite Joe story is was his call-out of the Edmund Burke Society at the University of Chicago.
But Joe’s favorite was bringing the “walking disgrace” that is Aaron Schlossberg to light. Joe did the initial post where Schlossberg was caught threatening to call ICE on two women speaking Spanish to each other. And then he did the follow-up detailing that “very bad day” Schlossberg had once video of his rant went viral:
Walking disgrace Aaron Schlossberg unleashed his racist stylings on the world yesterday, publicly berating and threatening employees of a Manhattan eatery for speaking Spanish. Today, the world received a much-needed reminder that karma is real, with Schlossberg suffering for his actions in every possible way. Professionally, personally, seriously, frivolously… it’s coming from all directions and it’s entirely deserved.
Kathryn Rubino racked up the most pageviews this year (congratulations, your steak knives are in the mail), so she had a lot of popular stories to choose from. I assumed she’d pick one of her stories about Biglaw men still treating women like they’re trapped in the 1950s. And I was kind of right. I just got the firm wrong. I’m always up for more news about how retrograde Jones Day is. But Kathryn went with men whining about not getting enough “credit” at Paul Hastings:
When talking about the role of women at your firm, maybe we don’t put a spotlight on the men. Paul Hastings seems to think men at the firm need a pat on the back for “including [women] in client work” and other basic stuff they should be doing anyway. Pro tip: If you’re trying to promote diversity, giving (mostly) white men center stage is doing the very, very least you can do.
Happy New Year. Thanks for reading Above the Law.
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
Editor’s Choice: Our Favorite Stories From 2018 curated from Above the Law
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